Less Than 48 Hours to Go to US Presidential Elections 2020.

South Africa: With the US 2020 Presidential Elections just 3 days away the situation on the ground is explosive. None of the candidates is willing to give any inch of ground to their opponent. Donald Trump, the current US President, is running on a Republican ticket while Joe Biden is representing the Democrats. So, who is likely to win these elections.Us presidential elections are held very four years.

The US uses the electoral college system to elect its president. Each state is given a number of votes based on how many members it sends to Congress – House and Senate. A total of 538 electoral college votes are up for grabs. A candidate needs 270 votes to win. In national polls, Joe Biden has been ahead of Donald Trump in most polls since the beginning of the year. He has hovered just above 50% in recent months and has had a 10-point lead on certain occasions.

National polls are a good indicator as to popularity of a candidate across the country, but they’re not necessarily a good way to predict the result of the election.

In 2016, Hillary Clinton led in the polls and won nearly three million extra votes than Donald Trump, but she lost the election- because of the electoral collge system. So winning the most votes doesn’t always win you the election.

Most states nearly always vote the same way, meaning that in reality there are just a handful of states where both candidates stand a chance of winning. These are the places where the election will be won and lost and are known as battleground states. The battleground states in 2020 are the following:

Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pensylvania, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin. Joe Biden is leading in almost all the states except for Iowa and Texas, where Donald Trump leads.

The two candidates held two debates in the run-up to this year’s elections, with the first debate taking place on September 29, 2020 and the second and last on October 22. 2020. Corona virus has dominated US public debates since the start of 2020.

There was only a couple of days to consider the first debate before President Trump’s tweet in the early hours of 02 October 2020 revealing that he and the first lady had tested positive for corona virus.

The focus had shifted to the Supreme Court after the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in September. President Trump insisted that a replacement for the judge be appointed before the elections.

So President Trump’s positive corona virus test put his response to the pandemic, back under the spotlight. This issue dominated the second debate with President Trump arguing that they need to re-open the economy as there will be no nation left if people are kept locked up. Saying that the Democratic States which had decided to close are struggling the most. He gave an example of New York city and said that it had lost up to 40 000 and referred to it as a ghost town.

Joe Biden on the other hand said that the President failed to respond appropriately when he knew about the virus in January 2020. He failed to inform Americans about how dangerous the virus was when he learnt about because he did not want Americans to panic. That he is not advocating a complete shut down of the economy but that the country should be re-open with adequate support.

On political interference by foreign nations, President Trump said that Joe Biden received $3 million from the mayor of Moscow and he is probably still receiving money from Russia. While Joe Biden disputed this and accused Trump of having a secret account in China and he is refusing to release his tax returns. Trump said that he has been told by his accountant that he has actually paid his taxes in advance. That he has been persecuted more than any other President in US history. Joe Biden said that the only guy who made money from Ukraine and China is this guy, referring to President Trump. President admitted having opened an account in China in 2013 as, like everybody else, he wanted to do business there, nut he decided to close it in 2015 as he no longer wanted to do business there anymore.

Both of them said that they would make China to pay for the damage caused by their lack of transparency with the corona virus, with President Trump saying that he had already made China to pay and they were forced to devalue their currency in order to pay and he used the money to support US farmers.

On North Korea, President Trump says that when he took over the White House, former President Barack Obama said down with him and told him that North Korea was the single biggest problem facing the US. In 3 months he managed to work out a plan and North Korea is no longer a threat. While the World was at the brink of a nuclear war at the end of the Obama presidency, that threat has been eliminated.

President Trump says that the Obama Care is not good for Americans and that it should be replaced and that Joe Biden wants to introduce a socialist health care. While Joe Biden said that the difference between him and the President is that he regards medicare as a right and not as a privilege. That he will introduce more affordable health care.

On race relations, President Trump said that no one has done more for the black community than Donald Trump. He said that he is the least racist person in the room.

It appears that President Donald Trump cannot be written off until the last vote is cast. Very soon we will learn who the next president of the United States of America is.